Letters From Roswell
by Maddie Mares
Summary: Max Evans has always loved Liz Ortecho, even after she leaves his life. All that remains of his love for her are the ashes of his letters.


Letters from Roswell

_He counted two-hundred and forty-seven stars in the night sky before he lost count; two-hundred and forty-eight if he included the blinking red light of a plane flying overhead. Starting his count again from Ursa Major, Max wondered if Liz was also looking up at the same stars wherever she was, and if the blinking red lights would also pass her by; unknowingly connecting them in some vague and quiet way._

~X~

They met in high school during their sophomore year. He was the cute boy with the chestnut brown eyes, brimming with farm boy charisma, and all the girls wanted him. Liz was the only exception, not that it was a deterrence. Not for Kyle Valenti. He always knew the right things to say to make girls soft in the knees, and all the moves to assure conquest; it was instinct for him, as natural as hurling a pigskin across a football field. But after a half hour of conversation, the golden boy had barely cracked the surface of her veneer.

And then it happened. She cracked a smile. It was tenuous at first, and he feared that the moment would slip from his fingers, so he took her by the hand and pulled her through the sprinklers on the football field. And her laughter resonated loudly over the pistoning ticks and hisses of the water.

Just like that, she was his.

They dated through their junior year, and most of their senior year. Then suddenly on prom night they were done.

She'd seen through his facade. Looked through and past him; through the meanness that he'd reserved for those he considered weak when he thought Liz wasn't looking, and into the eyes of the Evans boy.

Although he would never admit it to himself, Valenti knew it was not the first time Liz had looked in Evans' direction. And it would not be the last.

~X~

Max's entire life was about secrets. And hiding them.

From the day he and his sister Isobel were found wandering along a desolate highway at just seven years old, Max clung to his secrets in much the same way that life consumes air. Whoever he might have been, wherever he might have come from, those were questions that needed to be buried if he and Isobel were to lead a normal life.

But normal was difficult, especially around Liz Ortecho. Because somehow it was always harder for him to breathe when he was around her. The world was electromagnetic when they first touched; holding hands in the playground as Liz pulled Max up from the blacktop after a ball struck him down. Everyone had been too afraid to go near Max, but not Liz.

And just like that, his world was consumed by butterflies.

Nobody was ever eviscerated by butterflies. Still, when Max first felt that flutter in his stomach quickly seize and turn into a nauseating tightness, he wondered if he might be the first. It was like a swarm of them. Swirling around his belly, rippling and bursting to get out. And it seemed that his whole world was bustling with butterflies.

It was Liz's kindness that opened his heart, just a crack at first. But it wasn't long before it widened, and within it a room was formed. A room reserved only for Liz Ortecho.

And years later, that room continued to grow; consuming the entirety of his heart in a way that his sister never could.

She sensed it too. Max could feel her in the periphery of his mind, probing uninvited. But Liz Ortecho was his secret alone, she had a special place in Max's heart that no one else could touch, and Isobel was not permitted entry.

He wrote letters; dozens of letters. Maybe more. He'd lost count over the years. Every single one of them had been addressed to Liz; stained with words that could not convey the things he wanted to say; letters that swelled with embers and sparked on the hearth of a fireplace.

There was no place for his words to go. And no place for Max in Liz's life; Liz who was that spark that ignited the universe. She was lovely, and human, and free. But Max was none of those things.

Kyle Valenti was everything that Max Evans could never be.

~X~

The break up was inevitable. As final as it was, Liz had not been as upset as she should have been. In two more months, Roswell-and everyone and everything in it-would not matter. She would be free. Free of the town and its people; no more judgmental stares, or passing sneers to try to put her in her place. Breaking up with Kyle had given her exactly what she needed too: A clean slate.

And then there was Evans. The boy whose penetrating stare threatened to complicate Liz's life. She did not want any loose ends when she left Roswell. She could not afford them.

But life was complicated and untidy, and absolutely unyielding to one's wishes; and so came a day early that summer when her slate got quite messy.

And it came to pass that Liz Ortecho and Max Evans shared a stolen moment in the desert. It was innocent enough. A boy with two left feet, and the girl who knew all the steps. He fumbled helplessly despite her instruction, and they both laughed, the glow of the setting sun embracing them in gold as a slow song began to play on the car radio.

She never forgot the song. Never forgot the heat of their bodies as they pressed together and swayed to the music, their noses touching. And somehow Liz Ortecho, the pariah of Roswell, New Mexico found herself kissing the bookish boy who'd haunted the periphery of her life.

Quiet and unassuming Max Evans, who seemed to want to leave Roswell almost as badly as Liz. Who longed to be a writer somewhere far away from home, in a big city where he could disappear unnoticed in a crowd. And the boy who'd written Liz the only letter she had ever bothered to memorize.

It lit a fire to all her plans. Attending school across country didn't excite her as it once did. Not like the Evans boy whose hands and lips and words were all that Liz wanted to consume.

But summer ended, and kisses could not mend the pain that came when her family fell to pieces; a mother gone with suitcase in hand, and a sister buried in the local cemetery. Max Evans and his pretty words had no place in Liz's crumbling life. So she left, and Roswell faded into memory. And after a while, Liz could go for days without thoughts of the Evans boy and the letter that had enveloped her heart.

~X~

Time moves quickly. Ten years sweep through her life, moving her from one city to the next, through a series of boyfriends, and through medical school and into biomedical research. It moves too quickly, and yet it doesn't feel fast enough. She's been lunging forward all this time, too afraid to stop and look back.

She is engaged, but only briefly. The past hasn't released her yet, but she doesn't realize it. Not until she gets the call from her ailing father; her last tie to Roswell. And it's only then that she realizes the past is still very much alive in her.

As she packs her bags into her car, she wonders about the Evans boy. Wonders if he ever married. If he has a family now. And why it is that when she thinks of seeing him again, it feels like coming home. She only knows that Max never left, and for all her wondering over the years, she can never bring herself to ask her father why.

It won't be long. Twenty-three hours by car, twenty-one if she's lucky enough to beat traffic. The countdown begins, and she feels excited and afraid all at once; and she's drowning in the last words that ever touched her heart. Words that she still carries in a box of old things, on a piece of crumpled paper; its folded edges weathered from frequent handling.

~X~

_Most of the time I feel like I'm disappearing...until you look at me and then I'm so completely seen. I've never liked that feeling before. You make the sky jealous. Somehow, you always stand in the part of the room that the sun hits first-I'm convinced it moves from East to West just to follow you through the day. I swear you touched my lips and I stopped breathing for a whole week. And now I never want to catch my breath again._

_Can't wait to see you again._

_Love,_

_Max_


End file.
